Frederick Douglass' Paper

Founded in June 1851 in Rochester, New York, by Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass' Paper evolved out of the merger of his first paper, the North Star, with the Liberty Party Paper, a weekly edited and published by John Thomas in Syracuse, New York. With Douglass and Thomas as editor and assistant editor, respectively, and bearing the motto “All rights for all,” Frederick Douglass' Paper was published until July 1859 and served as a weekly broadsheet for Douglass to perfect his abolitionist thinking in relation to his support for political antislavery and his argument that the U.S. Constitution was an antislavery document. Frederick Douglass' Paper was not only a continuation of the North Star but also followed in the tradition of the independent black press, which was solidified by Samuel Cornish's 1837 antislavery newspaper, the Colored American. In his paper Douglass likewise followed an independent editorial course on most issues, and this independence led Douglass to direct his paper beyond a black readership to a broader Anglo-American antislavery audience.

Self-sufficient from the start thanks to generous donations from the philanthropist Gerrit Smith, Frederick Douglass' Paper ran smoothly for two years; in 1852 alone, Smith contributed twelve hundred dollars to the paper. Between 1853 and 1854 the black abolitionist, political antislavery supporter, and Underground Railroad advocate William J. Watkins served as the associate editor of Frederick Douglass' Paper. However, the decline of the Liberty Party after 1853 reduced donations and put the paper in financial trouble. From 1853 to 1855, despite a readership exceeding four thousand, the newspaper was in dire financial straits, owing mostly to delinquent subscription payments. The newspaper's business manager, Julia Griffiths, was a close friend of Douglass and a former member of a British abolitionist society. Griffiths had provided financial management assistance to Douglass in connection with the North Star and was largely responsible for keeping Frederick Douglass' Paper solvent during its lean years. She endeavored to keep Frederick Douglass' Paper afloat through antislavery bazaars—events at which clothes, household articles, books, and ornaments were sold to support antislavery activities—as well as fundraisers in the United States and England and the sale of books, including Griffiths's edited version of the antislavery collection Autographs for Freedom. In May 1856 Douglass sought to merge his paper with the antislavery newspaper the Radical Abolitionist.

Although the quality of Frederick Douglass' Paper was above reproach, Douglass did receive criticism with respect to the name of his paper—especially in light of Douglass's opposition to a national black press. A few black leaders felt it was inconsistent for Douglass to urge black Americans to support his newspaper as their own while he insisted on conducting it as his personal organ. Nevertheless, as with his first publishing venture, the North Star, Douglass received timely assistance from black abolitionists in his efforts to make Frederick Douglass' Paper a creditable newspaper. For example, James McCune Smith, a prominent New York physician, wrote his most important pieces as the paper's New York correspondent during the mid-1850s, writing on issues as varied as the integration of blacks into American society and scientific theories of race. Smith was also a newspaper agent for the black abolitionist and Douglass's editorial rival Samuel Ringgold Ward.

Ward, like Douglass, was the founder and editor of two New York antislavery newspapers, the short-lived True American (1847–1848) and the more successful Impartial Citizen (1849–1851), a semimonthly antislavery and reform newspaper. Although the Citizen was a rival antislavery newspaper to Frederick Douglass' Paper, Ward and Douglass would face similar problems—and contemplate similar solutions. Ward's financial hardships with the Citizen led him, as Douglass would later, to contemplate a merger—in Ward's case, with Douglass's newspaper. The newspapers failed to merge, however, and Ward discontinued publication of the Citizen in 1851.

Beginning in 1855 John W. Lewis, a former traveling agent for the Colored American, was appointed, in the same capacity, to solicit subscriptions for Frederick Douglass' Paper throughout northern New England, New York, and southern Canada. His appointment proved helpful, for Lewis was an unrelenting worker and lecturer on behalf of the newspaper. Although, the publication life of Frederick Douglass' Paper was just eight years, its failure can be attributed more to its opposition to the Republican Party and the brand of abolitionism advocated by William Lloyd Garrison and his followers than to any lack of support from black Americans. Nevertheless, Frederick Douglass's second newspaper clarified the basic issues confronting black Americans and gave them courage to carry on against innumerable obstacles, while it also helped coordinate the struggle against slavery and for full equality.

Bibliography

Blassingame, John W., ed. The Frederick Douglass Papers. Series 1, Speeches, Debates, and Interviews. 5 vols. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1979–1992.
Douglass, Frederick. The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass. Vol. 1, Early Years, 1817–1849. Edited by Philip S. Foner. New York: International Publishers, 1950.
McFeely, William S. Frederick Douglass. New York: Norton, 1991.
Ripley, C. Peter, ed. The Black Abolitionist Papers. Vol. 1, The British Isles, 1830–1865. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985.
Sterling, Dorothy. Ahead of Her Time: Abby Kelley and the Politics of Antislavery. New York: Norton, 1991.

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